The Tyranny of Too Many Games

Post navigation

Like probably everyone reading this blog, I struggle to keep up with all of the new game releases. And in recent years, I’ve found it harder and harder to keep on top of even a fraction of the great games that are coming out.

It made me wonder whether this was simply because I have much less time as a responsible adult and father, or whether the number of new releases has actually grown exponentially. I decided to go in search of some cold, hard statistics – and some of the numbers involved are truly eye opening. Here’s the write-up I did for Kotaku UK:

Published by Lucius P. Merriweather

7 Comments

I am able to keep on top of them, but that is because I always opt to own only Nintendo hardware. That keeps the amount of must-play titles much more manageable. I wish I had the time to have all consoles and play them, but I don’t.

Thanks! I tend to mostly stick to Nintendo games these days as well – the 3DS and Wii U have been my main time sinks for a while. But the PS3 has been getting some love recently thanks to the Uncharted games and Deadly Premonition… And I still have a huge pile of Xbox 360 games that I may or may not get around to playing.

nice write-up. i too focus on nintendo, and i actually feel relieved when they have a software drought b/c it gives me a fighting chance to catch up on all the games i still haven’t played yet. the sad thing is that i hardly ever feel i can justify replaying an old favorite, since that just takes away time from tackling the backlog.

Great article! I also mostly play Nintendo games, so no surprise that I’m actually doing fine getting through them. I will say that too many games should never be a problem, as long as they’re played and not just bought. A lot of games means options for everyone. Some will be able to play many, and some won’t. I do have a big backlog, but I consider it having options and something to play when there are droughts as there currently are with Nintendo.

This is the cruel irony of adulthood to me. When I was young, I would spend hours and hours reading websites and magazines about games I would never play, and I promised myself that someday I would have the money to play everything I wanted to play. Now that time has come, and I have the disposable income to buy every game I want, but between work and a reasonably functional social life, I can only get around to a select few of them. So I’m back to the same situation of having to be very picky about which games I actually go out and buy. I can’t even imagine what happens when the time comes to have to fit children into my schedule, and what that will do to my gaming time.